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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26804905">oh, my savage empire</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonstruckmidnight/pseuds/moonstruckmidnight'>moonstruckmidnight</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Legend of Zelda &amp; Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>BAMF Hilda, Character Study, Gen, Hilda-Centric, Male-Female Friendship, Rebuilding Lorule, Worldbuilding, a sprinkle of, and turned into a fucking monster, started as a</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:13:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,132</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26804905</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonstruckmidnight/pseuds/moonstruckmidnight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After everything, Lorule rebuilds.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Princess Hilda &amp; Ravio (Legend of Zelda)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>oh, my savage empire</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>if you’re here, then you’ve probably already read <em>once upon a time</em> by haohan, but if you haven’t then go do it! it’s very good and influenced my ravio characterization A Lot and was also one of the reasons i started this fic—i wanted something for hilda like once upon a time was for ravio, and then this happened.</p><p>title’s from Ribs by The Crane Wives.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hilda is ten when her monster appears.</p><p>She knows because everyone starts changing. Her tutors get paler, thinner. The eyes of her guards start getting closer together. A growing darkness surrounds them, shadows darker, darker, darker. And if she focuses, really focuses, she can see a mask over their faces. It makes her head hurt like her skull is splitting open, but at least she knows what’s happening. Why she’s losing everyone.</p><p>They had come to Lorule Castle as humans. They had left as monsters.</p><p>And it’s all her fault.</p><p>-</p><p>Lorule is a land of cycles, a land of monsters, a land falling apart. Princess Hilda is just one of many, many Princess Hildas, another part of this endless cycle. A monster for each royal, a fate hanging in the balance.</p><p>Hilda watches her world fall to ruin, a hole under her ribcage that expands with every breath she takes. The waters are toxic green and her blood is the same, the holes in the ground are widening with the ones in her memories, and there is a monster for her to defeat.</p><p>But Princess Hilda is never meant to defeat her monster. The holes are never meant to close. The water is never to run clear again.</p><p>Lorule is a land of cycles, a land of monsters, a land falling apart.</p><p>-</p><p>Hilda is eleven when she finds the scepter.</p><p>She’s looking for food, then, trying to find something that doesn’t need cooking. Berries, maybe, frozen in stasis somewhere. A potion or even fairy dust.</p><p>Instead, she finds the scepter.</p><p>Hilda almost ignores it, because it’s made of metal and therefore inedible, but something stays her hand. She reaches for it, slowly, brushes against shockingly cold metal with bare fingertips before yanking it back with a hiss.</p><p>She tries again, this time prepared for the chill. It’s bitterly, bitingly cold, but she closes her hand around the metal and feels… calmer. Steadier. The scepter makes it easier to pretend that she isn’t stranded in this castle, scavenging for any leftover food. Easier to pretend that she isn’t alone, that she knows what to do, that she knows she’s going to make it through the night.</p><p>(She doesn’t find food that night, but she summons a… bird? It’s dead, and the fireball that bursts out of the scepter cooks it. It’s messy and bloody and she chokes on bone and sinew, but it’s the best thing she’s eaten.)</p><p>-</p><p>Hilda is twelve and alone in the castle. It’s okay, though, she’s in the library and the library’s always been safe. Everything in the library feels blue in a way that feels (like legacy, this is her story, this is her people, please, don’t abandon us, don’t abandon me) familiar. Her head is buried in Lorule: A History and there are things clicking together that make her feel sick.</p><p>
  <em>—three goddesses gave mortals the original temptation, the Triforce—<br/>
—claimed to seal away the worst of humanity, said to grant a wish to whoever touched it—<br/>
—the goddesses wanted to start war, Queen Hilda saw in her infinite wisdom—<br/>
—destroyed by the Seven Sages, who sacrificed their lives to rid the world of the evil the goddesses had tried to trick humanity with—</em>
</p><p>There were no chasms before the destruction of the Triforce. The monsters were never this strong before the destruction of the Triforce. There were no permanently green waters before the destruction of the Triforce.</p><p>Hilda jerks her head up to stare, wide-eyed at the wall. </p><p>Lorule needs a Triforce. Queen Hilda doomed them all.</p><p>Princess Hilda barely realizes the book is falling from her fingers. She’s too preoccupied with Lorule’s unraveling to notice her own.</p><p>-</p><p>She cuts her hair short and leaves Lorule Castle when she is fifteen. She needs to see, to understand. To witness with her own eyes what devastation her predecessor’s foolishness had wrought.</p><p>And she needs to practice her magic, too. She needs to defeat her monster, save her people. Fix her own mess before it becomes too big to handle. She will not be like the royals before her, who abandoned her people. Hilda will break the cycle.</p><p>She has to.</p><p>-</p><p>Hilda is fifteen and a half when she meets Ravio.</p><p>Even at fourteen, he’s scrappy, sharp, and Hilda only needs to distract the thief chasing him for around a couple seconds before the boy spears him through the eye with two pieces of a broken arrow taped together. The ends of the purple bandana holding his hair back look like bunny ears as he bends over the corpse, stiff with dried blood. Long gone innocence.</p><p>“Have it back,” he spits at the body. He does an impressive job of making it sound furious, but he’s shaking and there’s the wet sheen of tears in his eyes. Hilda doesn’t need magic to know that killing the thief affected him more than he lets on.</p><p>“Bunny,” she says, makes it flat enough that he can’t tell she sees through him. “Good aim.”</p><p>He gives her a wary glance, and then another, more assessing one. “Who are you?” He leaps over the body—doesn’t just step over it, jumps, he really is a bunny, isn’t he—and takes a couple steps closer, tail of the scarf he’s wearing flapping in the wind. “I’ve never seen you around before.”</p><p>Hilda smiles, slow and sharp. “Are you sure about that?” She runs one hand through purple hair, still a little surprised after six months when it stops above her shoulders. “Maybe it’d be easier for you if this was longer.”</p><p>She sees the moment when it clicks—when he puts together the whites and golds and purples, less obvious in these clothes but still there, with her purple hair and red eyes, when he makes the connection.</p><p>“Princess Hilda,” he says, and Hilda’s long since stopped expecting awe at the title—most people despise a ruler who hasn’t been able to aid at all, and might even have been making the problem worse—but there’s something about the vitriol with which the words roll off the boy’s tongue that makes Hilda purse her lips and stare. “What are you doing here?”</p><p>Hilda blinks at him. Her magic is strong—well. Not strong, but definitely stronger than it used to be. She’s wearing traveling clothes, has a bow on her back, headed towards the Dark Palace. She’d assume the question would be answered by all that already.</p><p>“Lorule is a land falling apart,” she starts, and the boy— twitches, just slightly. She narrows her eyes. “Something you want to say, bunny?”</p><p>“I—no.” Ravio bites his lower lip. He flaps a hand at her, clearly telling her to continue. Hilda stares at him for a second before she acquiesces.</p><p>“I have to figure out how to fix this,” Hilda says. The boy blinks.</p><p>“Fix what?”</p><p>“Everything.”</p><p>It’s a lot to claim. Everything means all of Lorule. She can’t fix the chasms, the rivers, the monsters—none of that, right away. The economic sides, the reestablishing trade with the Ku, that too will have to wait. But she is going to fix it. She has to fix it, for her people, if no one else. Failure is not an option.</p><p>“And you think you can do that?” the boy says, and there’s a bitter edge to it that doesn’t feel entirely aimed at her. “Look around you, Princess Hilda. Everything’s falling apart. You think you can do <em>anything?”</em></p><p>Hilda meets his gaze steadily. “The only other option is to let everything crumble. I’m Princess Hilda. Do you think I hate myself enough to allow Lorule’s death?”</p><p>Silence.</p><p>The boy stares at her, and then shakes his head. “Alright. Fine. You do that. Fix everything, Your Highness.”</p><p>He doesn’t believe her. That’s alright. He doesn’t have to, yet.</p><p>Hilda leaves him, continues on her way to the Dark Palace.</p><p>-</p><p>She doesn’t get farther than the front gates before she has to teleport out. Her first try at defeating her monster is a failure.</p><p>That’s fine. She’ll try again until she crushes it.</p><p>-</p><p>Her fourth try, she meets Ravio again. He has a little bird with him, and watches her go silently. She doesn’t acknowledge him, and he doesn’t say anything.</p><p>-</p><p>She tries again.</p><p>-</p><p>And again.</p><p>-</p><p>And again.</p><p>-</p><p>Eventually, she has to admit defeat. She rarely gets in farther than a few rooms into the temple before she’s hurt badly enough that she has to teleport out or die. She would die taking down her monster, if she could, if there was someone else to put Lorule back together when she was gone. There’s no one for that, though. She’s on her own. She has to survive, for Lorule. </p><p>For Lorule.</p><p>-</p><p>Hilda runs into Ravio again, only this time, he’s waiting by the castle, still with his bunny bandana, his bird fluttering around his head. Before she can do anything more than raise a brow in question, he cuts her off.</p><p>“You gave up, then, Princess Hilda?” He shakes his head. “Told you. There’s nothing you can do.”</p><p>He sounds grimly accepting. Something in Hilda, built up on the frustration of going up against her (people, her people, those are hers behind the masks and she has to save them) monster, snaps.</p><p>“There is always something we can do,” she snarls, takes a couple of steps forward until she’s practically nose to nose with him. “I’m not giving up. I’m finding out what I can do.”</p><p>The boy just looks at her. “...what you can do, huh.”</p><p>Hilda takes a step back and inclines her head. “Everything helps.”</p><p>There’s silence, then, broken only by the chirps of the bird flying around the boy’s head. They stare at each other. Eventually, the boy shakes his head and laughs.</p><p>“Alright,” he says. “I’m Ravio. And I can’t do anything, but if you need something…” He spreads his arms. “I’m here.”</p><p>Hilda’s eyebrows shoot up. “Just like that?”</p><p>“No, obviously,” Ravio dismisses. “I’m going to need pay. Rupees.”</p><p>“Ah,” Hilda says. “Is that all?”</p><p>Thieves have been coming to the castle more and more often. It’s not a nuisance. Just an opportunity for HIlda to practice her magic. The vaults in the castle are mostly untouched.</p><p>Ravio grins, and it’s the first time she’s seen anything like it in… a while. He looks… happy. Or, at least, satisfied. Satisfaction is rare, now, with Lorule in the state it’s in. Hilda fixes the look in her mind.</p><p>This is what she’s working for. This is how she wants everyone to look, one day.</p><p>One day.</p><p>-</p><p>Things don’t exactly speed up after that, but the days pass easier. Hilda can finally talk to someone, and sometimes just spends hours talking about spell theory to Ravio--he’s surprisingly clever, and once she explains something once he picks it up with an ease she envies--or watching as he cleans off his current weapon. He never uses any of his collection, says he’s <em>always been better at running</em> with a sardonic curl of his lips that looks too old for his face, but he always has them on hand. He never says why he keeps them.</p><p>Hilda grants him the title Hero of Lorule. For all he postures like it was a foregone conclusion, with his grand, completely showy bows, she knows Ravio looks at her like she’s insane when he thinks she isn’t looking. She doesn’t know why he doubts himself so much. After all, he isn’t the one whose failure will destroy the world they live in.</p><p>No. She has not failed. She will not fail. She just needs-- time. That’s it. She just needs time.</p><p>-</p><p>(Ravio picks her up off the floor one day, where she fell after attempting a spell that would have to kill the monster in the palace and— failed. He patches up her hands, burned, bleeding, without a word.</p><p>“You can’t beat this yourself, he says. “So find someone who can. Outsource.”</p><p>Hilda laughs, low and ragged. “Do you think there’s anyone left in this world that could defeat the monster? No. It has to be me.”</p><p>Ravio eyes her. “...as you say, your Highness.”)</p><p>-</p><p>She catches Ravio glaring at one of the parts of the castle she never bothered to fix, lava seeping up between the flagstones.</p><p>“Your Highness,” he says, “I think you can forget not all of us can teleport.”</p><p>Hilda blinks.</p><p>“Ah,” she says. “Right.”</p><p>“So…” Ravio raises his eyebrows. “Can you fix it?”</p><p>Hilda eyes the lava, and then turns her gaze to Ravio.</p><p>“Say, bunny,” she says. “What if you <em>could</em> teleport?”</p><p>And so starts Ravio’s magic lessons.</p><p>He’s hopeless at all forms of battle magic, and Hilda winces even thinking about what happened when she tried to teach him how to shield. At least she got some practice putting them both in another plane to escape <em>that</em> magical backlash. But he’s uncannily good with locator spells, and Ravio turning up at the castle with new weapons becomes a common sight. </p><p>He can’t teleport without a running start, and sometimes his teleports don’t work at all and he just runs face-first into a wall. Hilda gets to use her healing magic, which comes to her easier than ever when Ravio gives her an awkward grin and proffers the injured part. She faintly recalls something she read in her books—magic knows when it’s not for yourself—and smiles.</p><p>She finally has someone else.</p><p>It’s-- not peaceful, because Lorule is never peaceful, and the disasters that come from Ravio practicing magic don’t lend themself to peace, but. It’s <em>better</em>. Like this, it’s… better.</p><p>-</p><p>Then one day, a painter named Yuga forces his way into the palace. He talks about another world, a way for them to fix Lorule. A way for Hilda to do her job.</p><p>And everything changes.</p><p>-</p><p>Yuga is everything Hilda needs and nothing she needs all at once.</p><p>He has a plan--he knows how to fix everything. It’s easy, the way he says it: <em>take the Triforce of another dimension</em>. </p><p>Hilda has tried, and he sees that, and he understands.</p><p>“You tried other ways because you are a good person,” Yuga says. “It’s not your fault that this was the only one.”</p><p>Only one way. This is the one thing she can do. Lorule is not too broken to fix.</p><p>(She is not too broken to fix.)</p><p>-</p><p>Hilda spends less time—not ranting, because she is royalty and doesn’t rant—talking spell theory with Ravio, and more time arguing finer points of dimensional magic with Yuga. She doesn’t go out, not anymore. She doesn’t need the reminder of what is left for her if she fails when she finally, finally, has a way to fix it.</p><p>Even now, she isn’t sure if Ravio left because she wasn’t paying attention or if she wasn’t paying attention because somehow, she knew that Ravio would leave. Abandonment always hurts less when her eyes are closed.</p><p>But either way, one day, she looks up from her thick tome of spells, blinking away the words swimming before her eyes, and realizes with a start that Ravio isn’t here. That she hasn’t seen him or his bird—Sheerow, she reminds herself, it likes her better when she uses its name—in a while.</p><p>But… Ravio’s gone.</p><p>Hilda turns her eyes back to her book. It’s easier to ignore the sting when she can drown it out with a magic-induced migraine.</p><p>-</p><p>(She knew this would happen. It’s what happens when she relies on anyone. They leave. Advisors, nurses, guards. Ravio.)</p><p>(In hindsight, Yuga should’ve been obvious.)</p><p>-</p><p>At least she knows that he isn’t dead, because there is a constant amount of gold missing from the vaults correlating with the amount she would normally have paid him. Once, she feels the doors opening and contemplates going down and stopping him. Grabbing his shoulder before he could leave. Asking him about the newest weapon in his collection. About Sheerow.</p><p>She doesn’t move. The vault doors close again, and a window is opened and shut. Hilda closes her eyes.</p><p>-</p><p>Hyrule. A Lorule painted in gold. Hilda wonders if all their flaws are the same, under it. If her golden self looks out at her land and feels the flaws in it echoed in her bones, in her mind. If her golden self has failed, failed, failed, and Hyrule is the only reason she hasn’t given up completely. If when she looks in the mirror, the only thing wants to do is shatter it until she can’t see her reflection.</p><p>She wants to ask Yuga about it.</p><p>She doesn’t.</p><p>-</p><p>Hyrule, she learns, still has their Triforce. She wonders if her golden self knows how lucky she is.</p><p>-</p><p>Yuga speaks of a crack in the slate in the Sacred Realm, a crack into another world that shines with the light of a thousand suns. She tells him about the things she’s put together, that the loss of the Triforce was never something good, that the previous Hildas <em>failed</em>.</p><p>Between the two of them, they begin to plan.</p><p>-</p><p>She knows what will happen to Hyrule if she takes their Triforce. Knows it intimately, feels it in the hole under her ribcage, in the gaps where her memories used to be. If she forgets, all she needs to do is take a breath.</p><p>She knows what Hyrule will become. Sees it every time she looks out her window.</p><p>So it comes down to this. Are her people worth more than Hyrule’s?</p><p>The answer is, and always will be, yes.</p><p>-</p><p>Ravio misses his next payment.</p><p>Hilda tries to pretend she doesn’t know what it means.</p><p>-</p><p>Neither she nor Yuga can find his body. It must have been destroyed, or eaten, or otherwise dismantled, because it doesn’t show even when she searches for it with her magic.</p><p>Still. There is no time for grieving. She will not lose another to the warzone that is Lorule as it is.</p><p>-</p><p>The Hero of Hyrule follows Yuga and the Sages back into Lorule, using a worn, magical bracelet that shines with power. Hilda ignores the bunny ears on some of his weapons. Just because there’s a Ravio in Hyrule doesn’t mean that she won’t still damn them. Her own Ravio is dead, somewhere where they couldn’t even give him a funeral. The reminder calms her doubts, steels her spine.</p><p>This is for the best.</p><p>-</p><p>The hero defeats her monster in one go.</p><p>Hilda tries not to feel envious. This outcome is for the betterment of the whole kingdom, after all. She ignores how the feeling curdles into inferiority as he crushes the remaining monsters. Ignores the way her mind whispers when she feels another portion of the weight on her shoulders disappear.</p><p>This is what she should’ve been doing. It’s good that someone, at least, is. And she refuses to feel guilt about what she will do to Hyrule, because she is simply doing what needs to be done. The same way that the Hyrule hero is destroying her monsters.</p><p>Simply what needs to be done. Any feelings can be suppressed.</p><p>-</p><p>Sometimes, the hero makes an expression so similar to Ravio’s that her heart cracks, just a little. She doesn’t think about how similar the two are, for all that the Hyrulian hero is blond and silent where Ravio was violet and verging on obnoxious, because that would require thinking about the bunny ears on the Hyrule hero’s weapons, and how that if he were Ravio’s counterpart, the bunny ears couldn’t be from Hyrule’s Ravio. She doesn’t think about how magical sensing spells cannot sense something that’s not in the same world, or how the bracelet is purple with Lorule’s magic, had been before the Hero came here.</p><p>Instead, she thinks about how loyal the Hyrule Hero is to his Princess, and how knowing that someone is always going to come for you must feel.</p><p>Yuga, when he works out how to use his new mouth, says that she’s spending too much time in front of the Hyrule Princess’ portrait, and that for all its beauty, there are spells to be cast. Hilda doesn’t snap at him. but it’s a near thing.</p><p>She catches him looking at the Princess’ portrait with something approaching reverence, and quietly wonders if he ever felt like that towards her. Whether she would be worthy of it, if he did. If she would want it, either way.</p><p>Never once does she allow herself to think that he might turn on her. </p><p>(She still isn’t sure if it would’ve made it easier.)</p><p>-</p><p>When Yuga betrays her, it’s in front of the Hyrule Hero, the portrait of her golden self, and her own, wide eyes. Of course he wouldn’t afford her any kind of mercy.</p><p>-</p><p>Ravio enters.</p><p>Hilda doesn’t realize, at first, just sees a giant purple bunny suit and a too-familiar bird. And then the voice registers. And then Ravio takes off the hood.</p><p>It’s a wonder she doesn’t sob right then and there. She chalks it up to rage, resolve and a healthy dose of respiratory paralysis.</p><p>It takes a minute before she finds her voice, and then she’s faced with Ravio’s green eyes, and he’s <em>kneeling</em>, when does <em>Ravio</em> ever <em>kneel</em>—</p><p>“You vanished on me, and now you come crawling back.” Her voice doesn’t shake, coldly furious in a way her feelings are only just rising to. Ravio’s face falls for a moment before it firms back into desperate entreaty. She has to swallow down the lump in her throat before she continues. “Why?”</p><p>Ravio never looks away, those wide, green eyes never wavering. Hilda goes hot with rage and then cold with realization as he explains. Her shoulders sag, her grip on her staff loosens.</p><p>And she says: “Oh, no.”</p><p>And she thinks: <em>so that’s how it is</em>.</p><p>-</p><p>Everything after that is damage control.</p><p>She takes her golden self and the Hero of Hyrule to their Sacred Realm. It’s easy to read the horror on Princess Zelda’s face when she sees their tablet, the crack through it leading into Hyrule. There’s pity on her face when she looks at Hilda. It grates, that another her would make that expression, would turn it upon herself. Hilda turns away with the Hero’s bracelet in hand, but she can’t stop seeing it as she sends them home.</p><p>In the silence that follows their disappearance, Hilda doesn’t move. She just stares at the slab, ignores the rustles of Ravio shifting awkwardly.</p><p>No one who’s left ever comes back.</p><p>She isn’t sure what to do now that someone has.</p><p>“Princess—“</p><p>Ravio doesn’t get any farther than that before the tablet shatters. For a moment, Hilda is grateful for the interruption. Then, of course, she realizes what that <em>means</em>.</p><p>The tablet is the last connection they have to their Triforce. If it’s shattered...</p><p>Maybe attempting to steal from Hyrule was the final straw. Maybe sending Link and Zelda back was too much. Maybe Lorule has always been teetering on the edge of destruction anyways, and this would’ve happened regardless.</p><p>Then the bits of tablet start reforming into a shape that Hilda knows, has never dared hope to see, and she can hardly breathe.</p><p>Their Triforce is restored. Hilda doesn’t even register her tears over the feeling of fullness in her chest. She folds her hands over it and revels in the warmth of sunlight and being <em>whole</em>.</p><p>-</p><p>It’s awkward, after that, to say the least.</p><p>She turns around and Ravio is there, green eyes and blue striped scarf and Sheerow, purple bunny suit and a sack of Rupees slung over his shoulder. His face is wide open, earnest, and Hilda’s hands flex by her sides. She summons her scepter for something to hold onto, slides her eyes to his forehead so she has a safe point to look.</p><p>He left her. Yuga betrayed her. She can’t--she can’t rely on him like she did. She can’t rely on <em>anyone</em>, anymore.</p><p>“Ravio,” she says. Her voice feels rusty, like she hasn’t used it in years. “What do you want?”</p><p>He takes a hesitant step forward, and Hilda doesn’t know what her expression does, but he quickly steps back, stricken. The expression folds away into something blanker, but his eyes are glimmering with the hint of tears.</p><p>“...would you mind me taking up the mantle of Hero of Lorule again, Your Highness?” he asks, and his eyes are flicking over her face, down to her hands, one tight around the scepter and the other fisted in her dress. She makes herself let go, smooth it back down. Ravio’s eyes move back up to her face.</p><p>“Would I mind?” She laughs, and it’s a little wet, a little broken, but neither of them say anything about it. Hilda swallows, shakes her head. “Goddess, Ravio.”</p><p>“What does that mean?”</p><p>Ravio walks forward again, doesn’t step back like before. Hilda’s fingers go tight around the scepter.</p><p>“It means,” she says, and she feels suddenly exhausted, worn out. “Ravio, you never stopped being the Hero.”</p><p>“...so why do you still look like that?” Ravio’s voice is oddly soft. Hilda wonders with a touch of bite if that’s something Hyrule trained into him.</p><p>“You <em>left</em>, Ravio.” Hilda swings her scepter in a barely contained gesture, and Ravio flinches back. She—isn’t sure how to feel about that.</p><p>“I did leave, Princess Hilda, and I’m sorry,” Ravio says, taking another step forward. He reaches forward like he wants to grab her hands but stops midway. “I was scared and—“</p><p>He cuts himself off. Hilda narrows her eyes.</p><p>“And?” she repeats. “And <em>what</em>, Ravio?”</p><p>“I thought you wouldn’t miss me!” he snaps back, and then his eyes go wide and a hand flies to his mouth.</p><p>Hilda stares.</p><p>“You thought I wouldn’t miss you,” she parrots, and her voice is flat to her ears, oddly disconnected from her body. “You thought I <em>wouldn’t notice.</em>”</p><p>Ravio’s shoulders rise. “Well, what was I supposed to think? You were so—so enamored with Yuga, why would you even look at me?”</p><p>He—he thought—no. No. Absolutely not. She has not failed her (only) friend. She couldn’t have. She failed her land, but that’s it.</p><p>Hilda laughs, harsh, jagged edges. “Goddess, bunny.” She shakes her head. “Get out of my sight.”</p><p>Ravio stares at her. Hilda meets his eyes, snarls.</p><p>“Get out. Of my <em>sight.”</em> </p><p>His face is blank when she finishes. He hauls his sack of Rupees back over his shoulder, bows, short and perfunctory.</p><p>“Of course, Your Highness.” His tone is as empty as the rest of him. He straightens up, pulls his hat over his face, and nods to her. “Thank you, Your Highness.”</p><p>He takes a few running steps and then he’s gone. Hilda stares after him and tries not to feel anything.</p><p>-</p><p>The chasms fill back up. Slowly, but surely. It hurts. Hilda has her first seizure when the chasm between her castle and the Dark Palace shrinks by a meter under the new moon. She wakes up an hour later, sore and disoriented on the floor of her bedroom. Alone.</p><p>She doesn’t know why she expected anything different.</p><p>Hilda learns. She adapts. She keeps an eye on the lunar cycles, makes sure that she’s never holding anything sharp or on any steps when the evening starts to show. She skips dinner on new moons, and her hunger pangs fade after a couple weeks.</p><p>(This would be easier with Ravio.)</p><p>(Hilda’s learned her lesson. She can’t ask anyone for help, not anymore. Not when they might leave when she needs them the most.)</p><p>The holes in Lorule close.</p><p>The holes in her memories remain.</p><p>She doesn’t know why she expected anything different.</p><p>Even after the mask is gone from them, none of the palace guard comes back.</p><p>She doesn’t know why she expected anything different.</p><p>-</p><p>There’s something new pushing at the edges of her awareness, a white hot brand of- ...something. It aches sweetly when she probes at it. Hilda can almost taste it on her tongue, a spill of sugar and sharp edges.</p><p>She reaches for it again, and this time, it comes as she calls. Hilda opens her eyes to a glowing gold curve in the air, hovering just above her outstretched hand the same way the Triforce of Wisdom did. It’s certainly along the same lines, shining with something holy. Pure.</p><p>A weapon of the gods.</p><p>Hilda knows, immediately, that she cannot hold it.</p><p>This is not meant for her.</p><p>She stares at it, watches it bob gently, turning in their air, before she closes her fist. The bow disappears with a ripple of light. Hilda blinks a few times to get rid of the dark spots in her vision.</p><p>Hilda is not an idiot. She knows, without a shadow of a doubt, what she just saw. It was the Bow of Light, floating inches above her hand, that she could not hold.</p><p>(Her golden self likely could. Her golden self was able to call it forth even as a painting. Hilda has, once again, failed.)</p><p>Hilda looks away.</p><p>-</p><p>Hilda is even more unworthy of her title, now, after this. She swaps it out for a new one.</p><p>The Queen Hildas have always made more problems that they left for the Princess Hildas to solve. It’s time she stopped pretending she could fix anything.</p><p>-</p><p>She finds a reference to a purification ritual in one of the older books about the Ku. It’s not the first one she’s seen, but there are details, here. Hilda brushes her fingers over <em>full moon silver</em> and <em>hecatolite</em> and <em>the Queens</em> and knows what she has to do.</p><p>She knows where the Ku Queen is. It’s part of her magic; she can feel Lorule and she can feel the rulers who live on it. She’s always been aware of the Ku Queen, never let herself forget her location. Somewhere, she <em>knew</em> she’d need it. Maybe it had started as mere hope, but Hilda has never been one to allow something as flimsy as hope to rule her.</p><p>She doesn’t bother to leave a note. No one would be there to read it.</p><p>Hilda comes out of her teleport in the middle of chest-deep water, and the only way she knows this is because her dress is <em>drenched</em>. It’s too dark to see, and the water isn’t moving. It’s still, stagnant, except for the ripples caused by her disturbance.</p><p>There’s nothing living here. Hilda doesn’t need to cast a sensory spell in order to know this, but she does it anyway. It dissolves without catching any living beings in its net.</p><p>Hilda is well and truly alone, up to her chest in toxic water, clutching her scepter like it’ll summon the Ku Queen to her, and no idea why her spell didn’t <em>take her to the Ku Queen</em>.</p><p>She’s strong enough to admit to herself when she’s unnerved. This definitely qualifies. Hilda allows herself one, drawn-in breath before she firmly puts that thought out of her mind. She has a goal to achieve, and she’s not going to forget it.</p><p>If the Ku Queen isn’t here, she has to find her. Hilda isn’t quite sure where to start--she has to use her time wisely, or she’ll be too weak to help anyone.  She has around two hours of prolonged exposure to the waters before long-term damage starts setting in. Two hours to find the Ku Queen.</p><p>Well. It’s not like this is the first time she’s had to navigate a temple with no light, after all. This is just the first time with a time limit.</p><p>Hilda lifts her hand and summons a ball of bright blue magic, tosses it in front of her so she has a source of illumination. The light it creates doesn’t reach very far, fading out after around two feet. That’s fine. She makes another light, creates a filtration barrier around her head, and goes diving.</p><p>Two hours.</p><p>-</p><p>Hilda makes it through the defenses in an hour and a half. </p><p>(Ravio would’ve taken less. He’s always been better at problem solving than she was.)</p><p>There’s an exit, very clear, and the water’s drained away to allow her to walk through it. Or, more accurately, step through it. The exit is a hole in the floor, glowing white around the edges. Hilda tests it with one foot, feeling no malintent, before shrugging and dropping down, feet first.</p><p>When Hilda lands on a cushion of her magic, there is a space between blinks where the whole area flares with light. Torches with white globes of light, similar to what she had been using to illuminate her surroundings only far brighter, ignite as she takes a few steps forward, revealing polished white walls around her and black rock under her feet stretching into the distance. The sound of running water echoes off the walls. She closes her fist around the light in her palm, feeling the magic fizzle out.</p><p>Queen Gren’s magic signature is <em>close</em> in a way it hadn’t been while swimming through the rest of the palace. Hilda summons her scepter and straightens her crown, vanishing the makeup that was undoubtedly ruined after her stint in the water.</p><p>Negotiate. This is her task. Find Queen Gren, and convince her to help her clear the waters. No matter what it takes.</p><p>She starts walking along the black stone path, letting her scepter click against the ground with every other step. The pyramid at the top glows with her magic, something she takes comfort in with her own magic so severely depleted after all the lights. If necessary, she can use the magic in this scepter to fight or flee.</p><p>Thirty minutes.</p><p>Eventually, the path ends in front of a white dais, upon which rests… nothing. Hilda takes a couple steps forward, frowning. There should <em>be something there</em>, they’re clearly in the heart of the palace and Queen Gren’s magic is so close she can barely breathe through it.</p><p>There’s a pool of water inside the dais, Hilda discovers as she takes a few steps forward.</p><p>She also discovers that stone <em>really fucking hurts</em> when you’re slammed into it.</p><p>“Don’t come near me,” something hisses, words so mangled that Hilda can barely understand them. There’s an <em>edge</em> to it, rumbling under every word. Hilda can barely breathe with the way her face has been pressed into the dais, and she’s fairly sure her nose may be broken, but that’s easily healed. She pushes herself back, bares her teeth.</p><p>“Queen Gren, I presume,” she says, makes it cold and regal in a way she still doesn’t feel, and likely never will. “That’s certainly one way to greet a fellow queen.”</p><p>Silence. Hilda blinks, then narrows her eyes. “Queen Gren,” she snaps. “I, Queen Hilda of Lorule, demand an audience.”</p><p>Still nothing. Her grip on her scepter tightens. This time, when she takes a step onto the dais, she’s prepared for the fin that lashes out, lightning fast. It slams into a barrier of her magic and jerks away, hissing.</p><p><em>“Leave me,”</em> Queen Gren--because there’s no one else it can be, not with that golden pattern on her fin, not in the pool of water at the top of this dais, not in the heart of this palace, in the throne room--snarls. Hilda catches the barest edge of something breaking the surface of the water, and that’s all the warning she needs to throw up another barrier above her head. The second fin catches and the Ku Queen struggles, angrily.</p><p>“Demise take you, Queen Gren,” she bites. “What are you <em>doing.”</em></p><p>Queen Gren says nothing, just pushes at her barrier with increasing force and guttural growls. Hilda rolls her eyes and reaches into her pouch. She hadn’t expected to use this so early, but…</p><p>She grabs the stone from her pouch, the barest touch making her skin protest, and tosses it with a splash into the pool. Her fingertips are hot and irritated, immediately after, and Hilda blows over them. She doesn’t have enough magic to spare for a healing spell.</p><p>Twenty minutes.</p><p>There’s a moment of cautious interest, and the fins stop slamming against her barriers. The sound of moving water joins the rustle of Hilda straightening her sopping wet dress and pushing her hair behind her ears. She still can’t see any of Queen Gren beyond the two fins floating above the water, but that’s fine. Hilda doesn’t need to see her to bend her.</p><p>“...the Rough Gem. Where did you find this?”</p><p>Hilda smiles, thin and sharp. “I do more than just sit in my castle every day, Queen Gren.” The barb lands, just as she hoped, and the Ku Queen’s magic flares up in a brief, angry moment. Then it disappears into nothingness, into... an odd, deep, darkness. Or something like it, anyway.</p><p>Hilda does <em>not</em> like that.</p><p>“It’s more complicated than you think,” Queen Gren sighs. Hilda, irrationally, wants to slam her scepter into her face.</p><p>“Your subjects are wreaking havoc, Queen Gren,” she says, a touch more icily than intended. “But that’s not what I’m here for.”</p><p>“It isn’t?” Queen Gren’s voice is strangely flat. “What other use do you have for me, <em>Queen Hilda?”</em></p><p>Her title is drawn out, but… there’s no taunt in it. No sharp edges. Nothing. Just. Her title. She doesn’t know why it sounds so odd coming from Queen Gren’s mouth.</p><p>“It’s our duty,” Hilda says. “The Queens are meant to cleanse the waters, every two years, with ground hecatolite and full moon silver.”</p><p>She summons the items in question, lets them clatter to the ground by her feet. No reaction. No disturbance in the water. It’s like Queen Gren doesn’t want to hear how to fix her domain.</p><p>Hilda waits, anyway, because that’s <em>preposterous</em>. What kind of royal would let their kingdom fall when they have a way to stop it?</p><p>A minute ticks past. Hilda’s down to fifteen, now.</p><p>“Queen Gren,” she says, sharp, shoves a hand out towards the dais. “Do you not want to purify the water?”</p><p>An easy question. </p><p>Hilda receives no response.</p><p>“...Queen Gren.”</p><p>“What’s the <em>point</em>, HIlda?” Queen Gren’s voice is flat, again, and that darkness from before is growing, expanding, <em>devouring</em>. “It’ll just run green in two years. We won’t have fixed anything, just put a stopgap.”</p><p>Hilda blinks. Once. Twice. She takes a breath, gives herself a moment to process.</p><p>Then, she lets herself rage.</p><p>“And you think that’s reason enough to let your people <em>suffer?”</em> Hilda presses, slamming the butt of her scepter into the stone for emphasis. “You are a Queen. Your first duty is to your <em>people.”</em> </p><p>“My first duty is to keep myself alive,” Queen Gren corrects, flat. “And I’m doing that. My water is pure.”</p><p>“And what of all the rest of your subjects?” Hilda snaps. “You may need to keep yourself safe, but that is not your <em>only duty</em>, Queen Gren.”</p><p>“Isn’t it?” Queen Gren’s fins flutter, just once, before returning to their previous lazy wagging back and forth. Hilda’s fingers go painfully tight around her scepter.</p><p>“It is,” she bites out. “Are you so selfish that you would let all your subjects waste away? That you would leave mine to hunt monsters for food? <em>Answer me.</em>”</p><p>“Are you saying that you’re such a bleeding heart that you would risk yourself for your subjects?” Queen Gren scoffs. “I know about that Dark Palace. I know that it remained until that golden one came. I know that it certainly wasn’t <em>you</em> who took it down.”</p><p>Hilda freezes. Queen Gren takes a moment before continuing.</p><p>“And those weapons,” says the Queen. “We both know it wasn’t you who retrieved them. We know that your little <em>bunny</em> did all the work for you.” The darkness surges again. It’s almost familiar.</p><p>...wait.</p><p>Hilda tilts her head. Where has she felt that before…?</p><p>“...and how did you know that, Queen Gren?” she asks. “That… is not something that the waterbound would know.” She blinks. “And if you’ve never left that pool of pure water, how are you getting any information, at all?”</p><p>Queen Gren is silent. Hilda shifts, just a tiny bit, into a battle casting position. Or, more particularly, a battle sealing position.</p><p>“It doesn’t matter,” the Queen says after a moment of silence. “None of this matters. There’s nothing we can do to fix any of this mess.”</p><p>There’s an odd, confused note to her voice. The water splashes. Hilda still sees nothing of Queen Gren other than her fins.</p><p>“That’s wrong,” Hilda rebuts. “It matters, and there is always something that you can do.”</p><p>The darkness flares again, and this time, she knows.</p><p>Without warning, she rips at the magic in her scepter, condenses it into a bolt of brilliant blue before hurling it at the dais. It shatters, spilling deep blue water over the ground, but more importantly, it reveals Queen Gren.</p><p>Queen Gren, who has a half-rotted mask over her face and black spots all over her body.</p><p>Somewhere in the back of her mind, Hilda is reminded that she has five minutes before she has to leave.</p><p>She doesn’t waste them.</p><p>(hilda is not worthy. that’s fine. she’s never been worthy, anyway.)</p><p><strong><em>(don’t touch this. it is not for you.)</em></strong><br/>
<em>(listen--she is not her ancestors.)</em><br/>
<strong>(but you’ve seen her actions, and you can’t deny that they were… reminiscent.)</strong><br/>
<em>(you act so scared, now. which one of us is courage, again?)</em><br/>
<strong><em>(and you are wisdom. shouldn’t you be able to see this?)</em></strong><br/>
<em>(that’s right. i’m wisdom. just… trust me on this one, sisters.)</em><br/>
<strong>(...alright.)</strong><br/>
<strong><em>(just this once.)</em></strong><br/>
<em>(just this once.)</em></p><p>It burns, when she reaches for it, when she forces her hands closed around it, but between heartbeats there is a bow in her hands, an arrow of light already nocked. Hilda takes a breath, releases it at the same time as the arrow.</p><p>It happens in the span of a moment.</p><p>A streak of holy light shatters the mask into pieces.</p><p>Queen Gren gasps, claws at her throat. Hilda lets her scepter fall from burned hands, doubles over with a hiss. The scepter hits the ground with a clang, but the pyramid is still floating at the top, still gleaming with wisps of her magic.</p><p>Okay. Okay.</p><p>“Queen Gren,” Hilda says, gathering herself, and <em>fuck</em> this hurts, hurts more than the times she burned herself with her fireballs, or the palace lava, or the stove. “Queen Gren, I know how to purify the water. Just--<em>fuck</em>--” Hilda pauses, tries to determine whether she has enough magic for a minor pain draining spell, realizees that since it’s a <em>holy wound</em> her own magic won’t work, and continues on with this knowledge and an uncomfortable awareness of her time limit. “I need to cleanse, I was swimming for a good hour and a half in this toxic swill, I will be <em>back</em>. The monster is gone.”</p><p>Queen Gren blinks at her. “...Queen… Hilda…?”</p><p>“Yes, obviously,” Hilda snaps. “We are going to purify the water. I don’t care if you’re weak from the monster, we’re going to clean this out! Am I clear.”</p><p>“I--yes--of course--Queen Hilda--” says the Ku Queen, but Hilda has run out of patience and time. She nods at the bewildered queen, grabs her scepter with throbbing hands, and teleports back to her castle.</p><p>-</p><p>It’s late. Hilda’s skin is green from scrubbing the toxins off, magically exhausted, and her hands hurt enough that she can’t even curl them into loose fists, but there’s a fierce smile on her face.</p><p>She has finally, finally, done something.</p><p>It’s not enough, but it’s a start.</p><p>-</p><p>When they’re setting up for the purification, Hilda can’t stop glancing at Queen Gren. They’re setting up in an open cavern with a river rushing through, so the moonlight falls onto her bowed head and reflects off the water to illuminate her face.</p><p>It’s hard to think that a few hours earlier, she was possessed by Hilda’s monster.</p><p>Queen Gren looks up from the hecatolite right as Hilda sneaks another glance, catching her eyes. “Was there something you’d like to ask me, Queen Hilda?”</p><p>She can’t help it. “How did you even get like that?”</p><p>The Dark Palace is a little away from the Ku Queen’s cavern, and Gren is a queen, just like Hilda, so she’s naturally stronger in magic. It should’ve taken a while for the possession to really set in. Queen Gren should’ve realized it was happening and been able to fight it off.</p><p>And yet.</p><p>Queen Gren averts her eyes. “I just…” She pauses, shakes her head. “Everything was falling apart, and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t think that there was anything I could do.”</p><p>“You could’ve asked me for assistance.” The words leave her without her permission. Queen Gren glances up sharply and laughs, short and dry.</p><p>“And admit to needing help? No, Queen Hilda.”</p><p>“But it was the only thing you could’ve done.”</p><p>“...I guess it’s foolish, in hindsight.” Queen Gren looks up at her knowingly. “You should’ve asked me for help with the water earlier. I <em>am</em> the Ku Queen.” </p><p>“...oh.” All that time spent searching for purification methods, for a solution to her crumbling land... and she could've fixed this earlier. Much earlier. If she had just <em>asked</em>.</p><p>“I promise to ask you for help if you ask me.”</p><p>A laugh. “Your terms are acceptable, Queen Gren.”</p><p>“Thank you for finding them so, Queen Hilda.” A shared smile.</p><p>“Now, we need to hold hands, and…”</p><p>-</p><p>The Queens of Lorule do the first round of purification under the light of the full moon.</p><p>The Triforce, gathered in the Sacred Realm, glows just a little brighter.</p><p>-</p><p>Each full moon after, the Queens purify the water, again and again. Slowly, the color drains away. The water runs clear.</p><p>Hilda’s heart, for the first time in her life, beats something other than poison. </p><p>(That’s not the reason it feels lighter, though.)</p><p>-</p><p>Hilda has not been to the cemetery in a long, long time.</p><p>(She used to go. Place flowers. But there are no spirits to appreciate them, and the bodies are not under the headstones. Why insult someone by pretending they are at rest when they are being used by something <em>evil?</em> Better to leave than to do more damage.)</p><p>(But she is Queen. This is her land. Her people. She has to put them to rest, now. She should never have laid flowers over empty graves. Her people are her people, and she must bring them peace. Even if it means they are in pieces.)</p><p>She is… out of place. Her scepter is in her room in the castle, crown tucked into a backpack, hair braided out of the way, wearing common clothing instead of royal garments, and still.</p><p>Perhaps the sins of her ancestors stain her still. (Perhaps they don’t need to look to her ancestors. Her own sins will do.) Perhaps the spirits of her people know she is to blame for their unrest.</p><p>She hopes-- no. She knows that she will show them that she will fix this. That she is not like the other Queen Hildas, who have left them to their suffering.</p><p>Hilda and the cemetery keeper, Dembe, talk. His eyes are too afraid for accusations. It’s horrible that it makes her feel better. </p><p>She can destroy the creatures that cause him fear. She cannot deny the truth of her failures.</p><p>Hilda leaves the cemetery with a better understanding of atrocity and a stronger sense of urgency.</p><p>There will be an answer in the books. There has to be.</p><p>-</p><p>She goes through her library.</p><p>-</p><p>And then she does it again.</p><p>-</p><p>And again.</p><p>-</p><p>And there is nothing there. </p><p>(She has failed them, once again.)</p><p>-</p><p>She asks Queen Gren for advice. The Ku Queen bites her lip in thought.</p><p>“It’s magic, so it’ll respond to magic.” Her eyes sharpen. “Your bow.”</p><p>Hilda averts her eyes. “I can’t use it.”</p><p>Queen Gren arches a brow, but doesn’t press the matter. “It’s the only thing I can think of,” she says apologetically. “If you can’t use it, see if someone else can. If nothing else works, it’s got to do the trick.”</p><p>With that, she lets her head fall back beneath the current and is gone between one breath and the next, presumably off to find her wayward subjects. Hilda wishes her luck under her breath before standing up.</p><p>She has more research to do.</p><p>-</p><p>Hilda scrys the cemetery, the same way she did with-- Link, during his journey. She doesn’t know why. She hasn’t figured out a way to put her subjects to rest without destroying her hands by holding the Bow of Light. (She knows that freeing Queen Gren was a favor. A one-time event. If she goes for the bow again… well.) </p><p>But she does it anyway, for reasons she doesn’t understand. Normally, all she sees is Dembe and disturbed graves. As she settles in for another scrying session, she doesn’t expect anything out of the ordinary.</p><p>But this time? This time is different.</p><p>Her sight comes into focus, and--</p><p>That’s--</p><p>That’s Ravio.</p><p>That is <em>Ravio</em>, fighting, fighting the dead bodies of the people of Lorule. That is <em>Ravio</em>, with Sheerow diving at the eyes of the creatures around them, quickly fluttering its wings when the spirit disappears in a cloud of violet smoke.</p><p>Ravio, whose scarf gets yanked hard enough that he falls to his knees, clawing at it. Ravio, whose grip on his weapon falters as his head tilts back.</p><p>Ravio, who she is about to watch die if she does nothing about it.</p><p>Hilda does something about it.</p><p>She teleports into the clearing he’s in, right in front of him, and swings her scepter to send out a shockwave at the undead in front of them. It flashes, bright blue enough to sear her eyes, but it throws the undead around them back, so she can’t really find it in herself to regret the loss of vision. Hilda tosses a quick protective spell over Ravio and spins just in time to intercept an attack from behind them.</p><p>This is more enemies than she’s used to facing. But, well. She was meaning to do something about them, anyway. If the library didn’t have something, then maybe she’d figure out a solution by doing.</p><p>(She almost watched Ravio die. They almost killed Ravio, for real, and she would’ve lost him, and he never would’ve come back.)</p><p>Hilda slams her scepter into the ground, buys them a moment of time with a binding spell that should hold for at least a few seconds. She whirls on Ravio, terror disguised as fury spilling from her mouth.</p><p>“You stupid-- <em>idiot,”</em> she hisses between her teeth. “Why would you do this?”</p><p>Ravio looks up at her with wide, green eyes. Sheerow flutters down to land on his shoulder, staring at her cautiously.</p><p>“...Your Highness,” he says slowly. “What are you doing here?”</p><p>Your Highness. She hates those words with an absolute <em>passion.</em> “Your Majesty, now. And someone has to stop the Hero from dying. What the hell were you thinking, coming here?”</p><p>Ravio blinks, slow, dazed. Hilda glances apprehensively at the undead around them. They should hold for just a bit longer, but no more than that.</p><p>“I… If I’m the Hero of Lorule, then I should be doing something to earn it, shouldn’t I?” he says, and shakes his head self-deprecatingly. “Of course, I’m nothing like Mr. Hero in Hyrule.”</p><p>There’s a tone there. The same one that he uses when he talks about running. Hilda eyes him.</p><p>“We don’t have much time,” she says after a moment. “But-- these were Lorulians. They-- We can’t just treat them like. Monsters.”</p><p>“So what should I do, Your--Majesty?”</p><p>He’s unused to the title. So is she. But it sounds better than <em>Your Highness.</em> It might be because when he says it this time, there’s something alive in his eyes.</p><p>
  <em>(If you can’t use it, see if someone else can.)</em>
</p><p>She knows what to do.</p><p>Closing her eyes and holding out one hand, she calls to the weapon she’s felt at the edge of her consciousness ever since the Triforce returned. It appears in a burst of white and gold light, painting the backs of her eyelids red. She opens her eyes to see the silver and gold she cannot touch and wastes no time passing it to Ravio.</p><p>“Take this. I’m going to weaken them, and you shoot the weak ones with the bow. Then I destroy them.”</p><p>Ravio catches it on reflex before he realizes what he’s holding, but Hilda doesn’t see his face as he does because she’s catching the arm of an undead on her scepter. She gathers magic into her hand and smacks it into the undead, sensing it reeling backwards.</p><p>“Ravio!” she calls. “Hurry up and shoot it!”</p><p>“Uh, Your Majesty? This is the Bow of Light?!” Ravio’s voice rises alarmingly high. It would be funny if they weren’t in a life or...<em>un</em>death scenario. Hilda sighs.</p><p>“And? You have a job to do, Ravio,” she says as she surrounds herself in a rush of blue magic, throwing the undead back. Hilda backs up until she almost bumps into Ravio, clicking her tongue in annoyance when she sees him just staring at her.</p><p>“Bunny.” The nickname rolls off her tongue before she can even worry about its reception, so she just averts her eyes as she continues. “It… It won’t touch me. But you can hold it. You can fire it. Use it to put their spirits to rest.”</p><p>She slams her hand into the air, sending a hard ripple of magic-fueled wind straight into the chests of the three monsters around them. She doesn’t have time to call up magic for the one sneaking a little too close to Ravio, so she just brains it with the pyramid above her scepter and slams the undead out of the way with the butt of it. </p><p>An arrow soars through the air and pierces through its eye socket.</p><p>The undead freezes, then starts glowing, golden veins beneath its skin, before it bursts into golden smoke. “So that worked!” Hilda says before she shrieks and causes a mild earthquake to destabilize the undead diving at her.</p><p>“Looks like they <em>really</em> didn’t like me doing that!” Ravio cries over the rumbling, but he sends another shining arrow flying over Hilda’s shoulder and into the undead’s chest.</p><p>“I’ll guard you,” Hilda says. “You just focus on getting rid of them!”</p><p>“Your Highness--!” Ravio squeaks, and then there’s another arrow rushing over her shoulder that goes straight through the undead coming from the side that she hadn’t seen.</p><p>”Come on, bunny,” she calls as she swings her scepter and generates a wave of force to shove the undead back. “Keep at it!”</p><p>An undead launches at Ravio, so she sends it flying backwards. A bolt of white light lodges in its neck, and it dissolves into golden smoke. Hilda lets herself fall into the rhythm of defense, keeping an eye turned inwards to monitor her magic stores as she blocks strikes from Ravio, who seems to be picking up tricks himself. Soon, instead of just one arrow, it’s two, then three at a time. </p><p>Soon enough, Hilda and Ravio are alone in the clearing, with faint wisps of golden smoke all that’s left of their task. Slowly, reluctantly, Hilda turns around to face Ravio. Ravio, who is already watching her with wide, green eyes.</p><p>Neither of them speak. The remnants of last time hang in the air, and Hilda doesn’t know what to do.</p><p>She’s still… angry. Furious, actually. Terrified. And grieving, because her best friend might be alive but he’s not by her side, either. And Hilda doesn’t know how to <em>fix it</em>. From the looks of it, Ravio doesn’t either.</p><p>“...good aim, bunny,” she offers after a moment. Ravio watches her for a moment.</p><p>“Pr--no. Queen Hilda,” he says, and it’s oddly subdued. “Where do we go from here?”</p><p>Hilda takes a breath, and another, and tightens her grip around her scepter. It’s a solid, grounding weight in her palm. She doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know where to go.</p><p>“Queen Gren and I. We purified the water.” She bites her lip. “And the cracks are closing. And the undead have been put to rest.”</p><p>Ravio is still looking at her, but it doesn’t seem like he’s looking at her. The look he adopts when he’s turned his wit on himself is clear on his face. “...and I didn’t do jack, did I.”</p><p>It’s not a question. Hilda’s eyes narrow.</p><p>“Idiot.” She takes a couple steps forward and bumps him, gently, with the pyramid atop her sphere. “Do you see any more undead Lorulians here?”</p><p>“No, but you had to protect me. I-- I couldn’t do anything.” His hands, Hilda notices, are white around the Bow of Light. “I tried, but… I failed.”</p><p>“Then we’re even,” Hilda says. “I failed to save Lorule. You failed to put them to rest on your own.”</p><p>She doesn’t know what she’s saying. Hilda just watches Ravio’s face, watches his eyes, his wide, green eyes.</p><p>“...but you’re the Prin--Queen of Hyrule. I’m… I’m just… me. A two-bit hero.” Ravio chuckles, biting, but only at himself. His fingers flex around the Bow of Light. “I can’t do anything.”</p><p>Hilda doesn’t know why, but she grabs for one of Ravio’s hands with hers. The skin of her knuckles sears when they brush against the Bow of Light, but she shifts her hands just enough to keep away.</p><p>“There is always something you can do,” she says, low, vehement. “You think I could’ve laid these Lorulians to rest? You think I could’ve put this realm back together?” Hilda laughs, a little ugly, a lot honest. “God, bunny. Use that big brain of yours. You did something. You did <em>so much</em>. It’s okay to need help.”</p><p>Ravio just looks at her. “But... Yuga… you let me go.”</p><p>Hilda looks away. “...I always knew you were going to leave. Bunny, I… did you think that I couldn’t close the vault against you?”</p><p>Silence.</p><p>“...come back with me.” It comes out in a rush of words, but once Hilda’s opened her mouth, she can’t stop them. “Ravio, I… Lolia, I missed you. I thought you were <em>dead</em>, I mourned you, I couldn’t find your body, <em>Goddess</em>, Ravio.”</p><p>Ravio stares at her with wide eyes. “Hilda…?”</p><p>“I missed you, every single day, I thought you were gone,” Hilda gasps, and she can’t <em>breathe</em>, she needs to say everything. She needs to stop. She doesn’t know what she needs. She just knows what she can’t stop. “I thought I would never see you again, and then you came back, and then you left, and I made you leave, and I lost you again, and this time it hurt worse because it was <em>my</em> fault and I knew you were alive but I couldn’t-- I couldn’t--”</p><p>She runs out of words here, just holds Ravio’s hand in a crushing grip and gasps for air she can’t seem to hold. Ravio is stunned silent, but there are tears welling in his eyes. She put them there. This is her fault.</p><p>“...I lost you, and then I had you, and then I lost you again, and it was worse, because when you were dead, at least things made sense.” Her words are slow, but she can’t stop them any more than time itself. “I miss you, Ravio. Bunny. Please. Come back with me.”</p><p>Ravio swallows, once, twice. The scarf reveals red skin, where it shifts. Hilda’s eyes automatically fixate on it. She was almost too late.</p><p>She almost lost Ravio for real, this time.</p><p>“...okay,” Ravio says, after a second that lasts an eternity. “Okay, Hilda. Take me back, please.”</p><p>Hilda cries. Weeps. The Bow of Light falls to the ground as Ravio wraps his arms around her. “I’m sorry, Hilda, I’m so, so, sorry. I won’t leave again, I promise. I swear.”</p><p>She turns her face into his scarf, pretends not to hear when her voice hitches as she says, “Thank you.” Ravio just holds her tighter, and like this, she can believe that everything will be alright.</p><p>-</p><p>It’s not perfect. The halls of Lorule castle are still deserted, and Hilda still has to go with Ravio to purify the remnants of the undead that roam Skull Woods, and the husk of the Dark Palace and the other temples are still standing, but she can do something about that.</p><p>Things are getting better.</p><p>Things will be better.</p><p>And Hilda is not going to be alone during it.</p>
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